Home > His Addiction : A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

His Addiction : A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance
Author: Autumn Reign

1

 

 

Danielle

 

 

I had to stay strong and keep pushing forward. If I didn’t, I was going to waste all of the hard work I’d put in.

The phone was ringing.

I could feel it in the back of my skull every time the loud, shrill chime poured from my employer’s phone. The office seemed pretty empty besides me, but I knew I’d have to answer it or I’d start getting weird looks from whoever was still there. My head was throbbing, brain swimming in fever, and I felt a need to keep pushing forward—I picked up the damn phone.

The ringing stopped, and it was bliss.

“Ronald Knutson’s office, how may I help you?”

“Is Mister Knutson available? I need his vantage point on a—”

Listening to the rest of the sentence was like listening to a drive-through operator through a thick wall of spray-insulation. I focused hard on keeping my eyes open, and not sneezing or coughing while the call was still going. Suddenly, the other side of the line was quiet, and I knew I’d have to say something.

I had to at least act like I wasn’t sick for the duration of the call.

“I’m so sorry, Mister Knutson stepped out of the office for the evening, can I take a message?”

Despite the fact that my whole body felt like I was slowly getting steamed to death, my customer service voice was able to stay upbeat and peppy. I could look and feel like death, but there was no way a potential customer or client was going to see that.

I hadn’t taken a day off outside of my scheduled weekends in the last two years of working at Knutson Investment. There’s no way I was going to let that perfect record fail me now. Besides, I didn’t have sick pay since I only worked thirty-five hours a week, and I couldn’t afford to miss a day.

It could cost me my education.

Woozy, I hung up the phone and took another sip of the coffee I’d filled my water bottle with. It wasn’t medication, but it was better than nothing. Pulling up my email, I clicked through any unopened ones and tried not to stare down the clock. I had thirty minutes left—I could make it.

Only half an hour of work, and then it was my weekend.

Well … kinda. My part-time job at a bar near my place still had shifts for me, but I had twenty-four hours before I had to show up there. I could go to my morning classes and sleep through most of the day if I needed.

I could schedule being sick for then.

The idea of dropping out of my endodontist classes was alluring.

If I just gave up on school now, I could be licensed as a normal dentist. I’d have to work for a different firm until I could open my own, but at least then I would save myself the extra eighty thousand dollars of the last two years of school—plus, I’d only have to deal with one job.

Then again, I knew that wouldn’t be enough.

I wanted to be a specialist.

As an endodontist, I could work with nerve endings and solve bigger problems than cavities. I’d also make a ton more money, which meant I could pay my student loans before having to retire.

The phone lit up, and I reminded myself why I was there.

I had to be okay.

The door ahead of me opened, and I watched as my boss's son slipped through the room to his father’s office. His dark eyes dragged over me as he passed—like he was taking me in before moving on. He was gorgeous, his olive features chiseled and sharp despite him holding down some kind of office job. He was in great shape for a guy I only ever saw there.

I grabbed the phone and put on my best ‘I’m not sick, please don’t tell your dad I look like this’ expression to pass it off as nothing. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice and make me leave early. I couldn’t afford to lose any time.

His eyes had something else in them.

Something dark, hungry.

Or maybe it was just my fever talking

Trying to pull myself together, I listened to the person on the phone and took my notes. Every call was worth more money than I made in a year, and I had to pay attention to every word that was said to me. Pulling myself together, I took notes and kept my voice light and friendly.

Thirty more minutes.

I just had to hold out that long.

I used to only be in the office when my boss was, but lately, I’d had to stay later and later at his request. The extra hours were nice, since I used to only work twenty a week, but it meant I had to lose what few hours I had for studying in the afternoon and move them to the evening after my second job.

Who needs sleep anyway, right?

The door behind me closed as my boss’s son left, and I jumped a little at the click. He was a huge guy, strapped with muscle. When I’d first started working there, I thought he was a bodyguard or worked security. He looked like a cliché meathead

I pulled my attention off of him and back onto my work. Twenty minutes left—where did the last ten go? I couldn’t focus on that, I needed to keep my attention on my job. I couldn’t actually be as sick as I was feeling, right? It was probably just a quick bug, or allergies, or something that I needed a couple of aspirin for and could sleep off.

I took a couple more call and finished up my notes, and by the time I looked at the clock again it was ten minutes past when I should have left.

Relieved, and exhausted, I tugged my long coat off the back of my chair and slipped into it. Grabbing a hairband, I slicked back my long brown locks into the messiest of buns and headed out for the night.

The seasons were just beginning to switch, and fall was bringing in harsh winds.

Pulling my coat closer around me, I started to list off what things I needed to complete when I got home. Homework was due for two classes, I needed to run laundry, my kitchen could use a scrubbing, I needed to study for an upcoming test—my head felt hotter by the second. It reminded me of my first cellphone, when I’d overworked it by having too many apps open.

I was frying my brain.

Too exhausted to focus on how funny that was, I tried to pay attention to how much further I needed to walk to get to the bus stop. A couple more blocks and I’d be on my way home.

That’s it. Just a couple more.

The wind picked up again, and it felt like it was cutting through me with its cold.

Just one more block.

I felt heavy, like I was trudging through ten feet of snow and unable to see or hear anything. The world felt muffled.

As I pushed on a little further, it became increasingly hard to keep my eyes open.

Why was I so tired? I hadn’t even worked both jobs that day …

My vision darkened at the edges like an old film, and I tried to focus on it. Tried to keep going. My eyes closed again, and the world slipped away from me.

 

 

2

 

 

Dale

 

 

She was on shift.

I could never figure out what the fuck my father was thinking about making her work alone for a couple of hours at the end of shifts. The office was safe, sure, but he was wasting her potential. I didn’t work for him, but I used his offices as mine for half of her shift. It wasn’t enough time to be around her, but I got to sneak glances at her thick thighs and gorgeous face whenever I needed a hit of inspiration.

My clients were taking their time getting back to me, probably shopping around for a lower price despite my relationship with the artists and owners being the best. They’d come back to me eventually; I never had to worry about that. Swiveling in my office chair, I stared out into the hallway and tried to decide if I’d earned a chance to check in on her.

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